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Traditionally, one of the most central themes of the social teaching of the Church has been the ethical value of the human person as a creature endowed with an original personality. As a person, man works for a particular purpose, in a pragmatic and rational way, with the ability to decide for himself and to achieve fulfilment. For this reason, work is conceived as an essential element of the person, and needs to be performed in freedom. Our principal source will be the social teaching of John Paul II, and in particular his encyclical Laborem Exercens, since this devotes special attention to the issue of human work. Indeed the focus of this encyclical is human work, that is, the individual who achieves fulfilment in his work. It is man himself who gives his work sense and meaning. By working he fulfils his vocation and his very being. Therefore man’s work is “both a destiny and a calling, but above all, work is for man, not man for work” (Laborem Exercens, No. 6). In other words, man’s duty is to work, not only in order to produce and possess, but to achieve fulfilment.

This article examines experience with global financial integration to identify norms for evaluating economic globalization. There are two perspectives regarding globalization: mainstream economics and personalist economics. The first perspective regards itself as value‐free even though its premises originate in individualism and utilitarianism. The second perspective originates in personalism and finds no fault with being value‐laden because there is no other way to proceed in evaluating economic globalization. Mainstream economics brings to bear a few principles from positive economics. Personalist economics employs a larger set of principles from normative economics. The authors hold fast to personalist economics as more relevant to evaluating economic globalization properly. Our argument rests on principles from personalist economics and two other sources: Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and John Paul II's public statements. We intend to contribute to the discourse on globalization using recent experience regarding financial integration to refine the norms for evaluating economic globalization.

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